Supplies:
Gather food that the caterpillar eats in the book
Apple, Pear, Plum, Strawberry, Orange
Directions:
1. Let kids explore food, they pretty much do this activity all on their own.
I cut up some of the food, used a skewer to poke a hole in it (just for fun to look like a caterpillar bite), and placed it on a tray. I gave them whole pieces, and some mashed up pieces. The kids examined, squished, mashed, smelled, and of course ate this activity. It was a ton of fun and I loved how we used all of our senses, score for Sensory Play!
Mr. Tickles loved every part of this activity especially exploring the sense of taste. It was so fun having him join in the fun. I am pretty picky about what activities my little toddler does because I don’t let him play with choking hazards or dangerous products to ingest so this one had his name written all over it.
Supplies:
2 Tbs. Sweetened condensed milk
2 Small bowls
Red and green food coloring
Large Marshmallows
Skewers
Paint brush
Crushed brown cookies (optional)
Directions:
1. Mix one tbs. sweetened condensed milk with food coloring for each color. (We originally tried plain milk but it was too runny.)
2. Poke marshmallows onto the skewer. We used 8 marshmallows but ours were a bit less fluffy than usual because the bag had already been opened so you may not need as many.
3. Paint marshmallows with the colored milk. We let our caterpillar sit for awhile and eventually the milk dried and it wasn’t really sticky anymore. I was pleasantly surprised because as we ate our caterpillar (never thought I would say that), we didn’t get sticky hands. Yummy Marshmallows!
Hey, before you go be sure to check out our Hungry Caterpillar Activity Pack that includes this craft and a total of 100 pages of language activities, math activities, science activities, and more.
Thanks for the tip of using sweetened condensed milk for the 'paint'. I've used food colouring and regular milk before for another food painting activity but I agree that it will probably be too runny and just soak up in the marshmallows. This is a great idea 🙂
Love all these ideas! My kids love Eric Carle and they would go crazy over these snacks. Great idea with the sweetened condensed milk, too! I'd be thrilled if you'd link up at this week's Off the Hook!
Such cute ideas! My kids will love making andrating these!!
Yay! Thanks so much, I love to hear it when our ideas are being enjoyed by others.